


A Burning Ashen Heart

by Saku777



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen, one sided belarus/russia on belarus's part
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-08 03:58:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14096712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saku777/pseuds/Saku777
Summary: A look into Belarus's thoughts during a quiet moment with her brother and the development and complications of her feelings for him.





	A Burning Ashen Heart

Belarus had not always loved Russia, at least not in a romantic way. She had always loved him to some extent however, but feelings were never easy when one was a nation. Feelings instead were buffeted, shaped, and influenced by the complications and vicissitudes of culture, history, and international relations. For a nation things were never simple.

It was quite low in the dusk of the evening as twilight settled into night and the cold winter winds howled outside, sounding empty and hollow. Yet inside was warm and close as she and Russia sat in two chairs by the fire. He was dozing and she was staring at him, thoughts swirling in her head and pondering his peaceful air and handsome looks as a small smile played upon her lips. She liked moments like these best, in the quiet with just the two of them. However history and politics always hovered in the background, ever preset within their souls and selves. She refused to think of the past, now was not the time. 

It was not the time to ponder how she felt torn and disenfranchised under the commonwealth as Poland took more and more power from her as time went on and Lithuania seemed to simply stand by the sidelines. It was not the time to think of her resentment when younger at both Lithuania and her dear Russia for fighting over her as if she were a doll and essentially playing hot potato before she finally fell into Russia’s arms for good after the partitions.

Back then when she began living with him she was a simple peasant girl who’s delight was in hunting mushrooms, braiding hair, and running in the woods. After all some things never changed and this had’t even in modern day. Yet, she did not love Russia then, she barely knew him. Despite the small decades in his grasp they had spent centuries apart and he was caught up in his own affairs. So while she loved him in a familiar way due to their past before Lithuania had taken her over she mostly kept to herself and her own people in the countryside while her brother stayed in the east, presumably in Moscow or later Petersburg even if he himself longed for nature as well. 

After the partitions sometimes he brought his rustic little sister to the city and dressed her up as a lady in order to meet nobility, but this did not happen often and Belarus preferred it that way. She wanted her fields and forests, her loose comfortable folk dresses with their pretty embroidery and checkered patterns, she wanted her flower crows, and half pagan half Orthodox festivals. She wanted nothing of fancy balls, manners, French, and pretensions of being European. However she still loved her brother and read Pushkin and listened with rapture as he played piano and learned from him as well. 

However it was not the time to look back and remember that life was hard and that she went hungry often, to remember ad think of her anger and resentment towards the tsars until finally everyone had had enough and her world fell apart and her eyes were opened. It was always the time to think of how he had helped her grow in the 1920s’, but it was not the time to think of how he had hurt her too. Yet even then she did not love him.

Things changed in the 1930′s, but it was not the time to think of that, it was never the time to think of that. Never never never. From then on she loved him, as if he was a part of her own soul, after all he had seeped himself into her and for a time she did not know where he ended and she began. She forgot herself and found she did not care. 

She watched him intently as he turned another page of his book, and if he noticed her staring he did nothing about it. He was a mystery but to the west who knew little of her, she was too and ever since that time she had loved him with a great intensity and still did to this day. There had been a time however, when the burns of radiation seared her back, when a leader important to her had been killed, when all they had worked for had fallen in the dust and lay in shambles around her, when she had looked at herself and at Russia and realized that following after him had lead nowhere good. She was left lost and bereft with nowhere to go. Home was too close to Russia and too frighteningly messy, and so with permission she departed for a few years to America, for it seemed the thing to do. After all, America was still strong and standing and there was perhaps a great secret in it’s glittering shores.

She left after five years however, finding herself bitterly disappointed both by the efforts of new governance in her own home and what she found in America. Everything had been new and shiny and scary, everything had failed to live up o what was said of it. Now Lukashenko was in power, a common man of the farms and he would protect her and her people from the forces that threatened them. As she stepped off the plane onto her native lad she felt life flow again within her. 

The next day as she walked the streets of Minsk, feeling it course through her body she remembered her old love for Russia and it burned within her once more. She longed to see him. However there was reluctance to see him as well, both from old memories she was trying to vanish away and also from the fear that he would hate her for leaving his side. Before she had left however he had given her a gift, a soviet schoolgirl graduation uniform he had either made himself or gotten specially made, she had been too conflicted to ask at the time. She couldn’t read his eyes when he gave it to her, just like she couldn’t read them now as they were sitting his room, nor when she returned to his side. For years she wondered if it was a going away present filled with love and good intent or if it was away to tell her she would never be free from him. She didn’t know which one and found she didn’t mind either scenario. \

Whatever the case though she refused to look at the dress at first as time passed, but now she looked at and wore it often, treasuring it as a gift from her beloved brother and being grateful for what she had received. She wasn’t wearing it now however, but she was wearing a red ribbon and somewhat lumpy sweater he had made her, for she treasured all the things he gave her as precious. Thinking back to the past, but not too past past for there was no need to remember that, she remembered when she returned. She could not guess his thoughts. She did not know to this day if he was happy, or angry, or resentful, and it unnerved her terribly. Despite wearing his dress when she first appeared as a sign of acquiescence she still could not read his thoughts and to this day he remained an enigma. Russia was less of an enigma to her than to others who were more western or not as close to him, but even still he closed himself off to all.

Belarus however wanted to love him and to penetrate his mind, though her reasons were not entirely altruistic. She had learned from her time alive that to be a nation was to care for one’s own survival above all or at least if that was not possible the well being of her people. Throughout her long life she had lived being constantly torn between east and west, being a pawn at the mercy of greater powers like Poland and yes her brother Russia. While she readily aired her resentment and anger at Poland and by extension Lithuania, seeing them both as western oppressors who had forced her to speak Polish and pushed her aside, taking away the former glory of Polotsk, she was quite willing to excuse Russia’s misdeeds against her. She simply refused to remember, to even speak of them whatsoever. 

However she wasn’t naive or stupid and knew her position was precarious and depended on his good will. They were close, bonded by ties of culture and history, but at the same time they were nations and not humans and so haunted by that history and a desire to serve their own people first and foremost as well. While she wiggly allied with him, spoke Russian more than Belarusian, and happily consumed Russian media and products at the same time she also played her cards wisely. She was no princess or damsel in distress, but rather a resourceful peasant making do with what she had. 

Every day she watched Russia carefully, making every note of his moves and moods. Above all she did not wish to anger or alienate him for he was a valuable ally and a nation she deepened on greatly. Given her dependence on him and the fact that he was right next door angering him and being aggressive towards him was, frankly she felt something that would of been a stupid move. She wanted her brother to feel love and benevolence towards her, to be willing to count her in his circle and to give her all the oil and financial help she wanted.

Of course recent events had complicated this and she thought inwardly with annoyance and anger at how current events had complicated their relationship. There would always be that bond between them that they shared as east Slavic nations with a common history, culture, and way of thinking, however things had grown uncertain and precarious. There had been the disputes between them, the milk and oil wars, and Russia was suspicious of Lukashenko and some of his overtures towards the west. Belarus herself always assured Russia that he was her most favored nation and that everything she did was for his good and benefit, though the latter wasn’t totally true.

Rather she was alright with these overtures because she felt she had to play both sides in order to remain safe and secure with a veneer of neutrality. She couldn’t be too much on one side, and she certainly did not want to be a troublemaker like her sister Ukraine. Nevertheless she favored Russia more as she understood him more and despite the fact that a desire for marriage had cooled on both their bosses parts Belarus still desired it in a part of her heart. She thought it might ensure more stability and security for herself and her people. It wasn’t that she wanted to become a part of Russia, Belarus was Belarus after all and it was best that way. However sharing an economic bond she felt would help out both of their peoples, though she was firstly concerned with her own. So her desire for this had not faded, but she was realistic. She had decided to place this on the back-burner and bide her time till it was desired again.

There were other ways to show her love for Russia after all, other ways to be close to him and she could always always still hold his hand. At that moment her musings were interrupted Russia who said, “What are you thinking of Natasha? You look pensive.” Belarus’s eyes lost their glazed dazed look and focused on her brother. She then stood up and sat near him at his feet, taking his large hand into her own small and graceful, yet rough and scarred, one. Then with her eyes lowered demurely she said, “Only of you Vanya, of how wonderful you are and how much I adore you. What other thing could I even be thinking of?” They were close, so she could hide her own mind and make herself an enigma too after all. The game they played, the dance they had, it had two participants, not one.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to explore how I think Bela's feelings were not always romantic and how they developed and why. I also wanted to show why she still has these feelings for him and why and what they're affected by. I headcanon she developed these feelings in an unhealthy manner after being traumatized and heavily Russfied by Stalin in the 1930's and that they returned in full force after Lukashenko came into power.   
> The USSR was also a thing with both good and bad for Belarus as in the 1920's before Stalin although things could be harsh and Lenin was no saint, there was a flowering of national Belarusian identity and culture.   
> Belarus's canon blue dress is modeled after the USSR schoolgirl uniform and today's post USSR nation's last bell graduation outfit.   
> The time she spent in America for five years is representative of the time that Belarus was pre Lukashenko but post USSR and ended when Lukashenko came to power.


End file.
